


Close To Your Chest

by Scrawlers



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Monsters (Anime & Manga)
Genre: Gen, M/M, also this has mentions of child abuse and neglect thanks to Jounouchi's parents, but they're on the way there, starts pre-canon and ends post-canon, this is all technically before they start dating (or even realize they have feelings for each other)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-16
Updated: 2018-12-16
Packaged: 2019-09-20 04:07:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,582
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17015412
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Scrawlers/pseuds/Scrawlers
Summary: The only people who knew about Jounouchi’s guitar were him and his father—at least, when his father was sober enough to remember. Jounouchi thought it was probably better that way.





	Close To Your Chest

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this a few years ago, but in the wake of Tumblr being . . . Tumblr, I've decided its best to archive my fics here, just in case.

Jounouchi was twelve years old when he found his father’s old guitar.

His father was passed out on the living room couch again, empty beer bottles leaking the last dregs of amber liquid on the carpet, and Jounouchi was looking for the extra box of trash bags he knew they had. So far, his search had returned nothing.  There were no trash bags beneath the kitchen sink, where they should have been, and none in any of the cupboards, either.  With his frustration mounted, Jounouchi turned his search to every nook and cranny of their tiny apartment, and that was when he found the guitar case stuffed in the hall closet, shoved behind a thick wall of his father’s musty old coats.

The case was old and black, with numerous scuff marks marring its surface.  At first, Jounouchi wasn’t even sure what it was; it wasn’t until he shoved the coats aside with a bit more force than necessary and yanked the guitar case out from behind them that he realized he recognized it.  It was his father’s, he knew, and if he thought about it hard enough he could almost remember seeing it open in the living room, the guitar inside cradled in his father’s arms, his mother smiling—and that was a memory so rare Jounouchi couldn’t be sure his mind wasn’t making it up.  Why the case had been shoved in the closet he couldn’t say. It didn’t surprise him that his father didn’t play anymore, what with all of his time being consumed by booze and sleep, but if anything, Jounouchi would have banked on his father selling the thing rather than keeping it.  If the guitar was still in good condition, it could have probably fetched at least half of the month’s rent, if not the whole thing in one swoop.

Jounouchi looked over at his father, at the lump of man sprawled on the sofa.  It was a waste to have the guitar here, shoved in the closet, forgotten.  If Jounouchi sold it, his old man had no way of knowing. If he did find out months later—if he somehow remembered it existed and went to check—it would be too late, and there was a chance Jounouchi could convince him that he’d sold the thing himself. But when Jounouchi looked back at it, when he ran his fingers along the pebbled leather of the case, he felt the urge to sell it dwindling.  He could sell it.  He  _could_.  But there were other uses for it, too.  The memory, false though it may have been, of his parents smiling and laughing together as his father played told him that well enough.

With one more cautious glance toward his father, Jounouchi picked the guitar case up and carried it to his bedroom.  It was heavy, and he stumbled a little under the weight, but when he finally dropped it on his bed, he felt a rush of satisfaction and pride.

It was his now, he decided, even if his dad hadn’t officially handed it over.  It was his, and he would learn to play, and he would be  _awesome_ , and maybe even a rock star someday, with thousands—no, millions, or even  _billions_ —of adoring fans all around the world.

So long, part-time jobs, Jounouchi thought.  He was on his way to super stardom.

**\- - -**

Super stardom, it turned out, was difficult to obtain when he had so little time to play.

Mornings were spent on his paper route, afternoons were spent at school, and when there weren’t special edition evening papers to deliver, Jounouchi spent his evenings with either Honda Hiroto, or whatever punks he could find to hang out and possibly fight with.  Whether he was working or hanging out, Jounouchi always made sure to return to the apartment late enough that his dad was bound to be asleep.  It was easier that way, easier to slip in, shower, and then catch a few hours of sleep before he had to be up for work, without having to worry about his dad getting pissed at him because he was home too late, or his school called to say he got in a fight again and that the other kid was fine when Jounouchi’s dad told him goddamn well to be a man and finish the fights he started, or why the fuck were they out of bread, wasn’t Jounouchi gonna pick some up after school? Lousy kid.

So it was hard to practice, and even when he had the time, playing the guitar was harder than just strumming with the hope that it would sound good. Jounouchi tried to mimic the songs he heard on the radio, or on Honda’s Walkman; he picked at the strings, playing their sound against what he remembered the songs sounded like, but somehow it never came out right. Even when he hummed along with the chords, and tried to match his playing to his humming, nothing worked.  More than once, Jounouchi dropped the guitar on his bed, frustrated, but he always went back to it.  If there was one thing he could say about himself, it was that he wasn’t a quitter.

Jounouchi kept most of his playtime to Sundays, after the paper route, while Honda was in the cram school his parents were making him go to (so he could “shape up” and “not be a delinquent” and “get his act together,” or so Honda said his parents said), and Hirutani was off doing whatever with the groupies that always followed him around.  Lately, Jounouchi’s father had been going to a job centre to try and find part-time work; he’d said in one of his rare moments of sobriety that he wanted to help out, that it was time for  _him_ to buck up and be a man and bring more income into the household. Jounouchi agreed, but he knew better than to say so. Instead, he just nodded and thanked his lucky stars that this meant he could have some hours of solitude on Sundays, enough for him to practice and play without tipping his old man off about the “borrowed” guitar.

The problem, of course, was that when Jounouchi let himself get into it something, he got  _into_ it. Such was his focus that he blocked out the rest of the world, tuned it out to focus on his playing, and he so he didn’t hear the front door open and close, and didn’t notice that his father had returned from the job centre early until his old man was standing in his bedroom doorway, his gruff voice easily heard over the sound of Jounouchi’s haphazard strumming.

“So you found that old thing, huh?”

“What? Oh, uh—” Jounouchi tried to set the guitar aside, tried to hide it behind him, considered maybe even using it to defend himself, like a sword—but his father had seen it, and instead of the dark scowl Jounouchi expected to see, he found that his dad was smirking a little instead.

“Forgot I had it, to be honest. Feels like years since I seen that thing.”  Jounouchi’s father crossed the room and dropped onto Jounouchi’s bed, the thin mattress creaking under his weight.  He took the guitar in his hands, and held it far more comfortably than Jounouchi had. When he tested a few of the strings, the music sounded softer—prettier.  “Used to play this for your mother.  Remember that?”

“Yeah.”

“Hmph.”  Jounouchi’s father strummed a few more of the chords.  “Wooed her off her feet with it.  Like in the movies, you know.  Played it every day after she got outta school.  Proposed with it, even.  Wrote a song and everything.”

Jounouchi didn’t know what to say.  For once, the stench of alcohol wasn’t permeating the air between them, and though his father sounded a bit bitter when talking about his mother, it wasn’t the same angry bitterness that was usually followed by smashed bottles and overturned tables.  The silence between them was only broken by the gentle sound of the guitar, and Jounouchi tapped his fingers against his legs, wondering what to say or do—wondering what the  _wrong_ thing would be, so that he could avoid it.

After a moment, his father looked up at him with a furtive glance and asked, “You wanna learn how to play, boy?”

“Wha—really? You mean it?” Jounouchi asked, and when his father gave him a sarcastic look, hastily followed with, “You’re not mad I took it?”

His father snorted.  “S’not like I was playing it, was I?  Fine if someone gets some use out of it.  Maybe you’ll use it to woo a girl of your own someday.”

Jounouchi wasn’t sure about that.  He wasn’t interested in girls, at least not at the moment, and it wasn’t as if his parents’ marriage had ended well, guitar wooing or not.  But he wasn’t going to pass up this opportunity, wasn’t going to ruin the chance he was given.  Maybe this was the key to spending time with his dad, maybe this was how they could finally bond, instead of fighting all the time.  “Yeah,” he said, and for the first time in what felt like years, he was graced with one of his father’s genuinely happy smiles.  “Hell yeah, that’d be awesome! Teach me everything you know!”

“A’right, then scootch over here, and take it like this.” Jounouchi’s father put the guitar in Jounouchi’s arms, and gently adjusted his hands so that he could hold the guitar in a more comfortable grip.  “First thing we’ll start with is the chords . . .”

**\- - -**

Jounouchi had a bad habit of being optimistic. When his mother left and took Shizuka with her, Jounouchi had hoped she’d be back for him, or at least that she’d call or even send letters, but neither thing had happened.  And when his father had given him his first official guitar lesson, Jounouchi had thought it would be a regular thing, a way for them to bond, but the next time he asked his dad to show him something, he’d been told, “god damn, not fucking now, go do somethin’ with yourself, fuck” and had been shoved into a wall (Jounouchi thought that his father was probably aiming for the hallway, but aim and coordination were both hard to manage after he knocked back his sixth drink).  Jounouchi figured he should have known better—the temp job his dad had landed at the job centre gave him enough cash to afford the  _strong_ stuff, the  _good_ stuff, better than the “piss water” beer he’d purchased before—but optimism was a fault of his he’d have to learn to get over.

So he was careful now, as he had been before, playing the guitar only when his dad was out of the house or in blessed moments of his dad’s sobriety. His father did sometimes grace him with spontaneous lessons, sometimes as apologies for swings taken or bottles thrown, other times because he’d sobered up just enough to remember that Jounouchi had the guitar at all and wanted to see how his progress was coming along. Truthfully, the one lesson was probably enough; once he had the basic idea of how to play, he could sort of pick songs out of himself, even if they weren’t very good. It was still enjoyable—peaceful. But any moments of sobriety were ones he would take, any chances to have something beyond a shit relationship with his father were ones he’d grasp at.  It was a lost cause, he knew.  But his mom had already given up on him, and when he saw other kids out with their parents in the shops or heard Honda grousing about how  _his_ parents were up in his business and wouldn’t ever get off his case—well, it made him feel like a whiny little girl to admit it, but Jounouchi still felt jealous.

By the time he was fourteen, he was just under passable, in his estimation. But even when Hirutani’s gang members bragged about their accomplishments—when they talked about whatever girls they’d managed to con into making out with them, when they talked about how many guys they took in a fight at once or how they’d  _totally_ jacked this motorcycle and ridden it clear to Shibuya the past weekend, and shut the fuck up, this wasn’t bullshit, it really fucking happened, did you wanna fight about it—he kept it to himself.  So far, no one but Jounouchi and his father (when his father was sober enough to remember) knew that Jounouchi could play.  And even when Hirutani puffed up and pointedly boasted about all the cool shit he could do, as if it should make Jounouchi drool after his heels like the rest of his cronies, Jounouchi kept it that way.  It was better, he thought, to have that one thing he didn’t share with others.  It kept it special, kept it sacred.  He didn’t tell them about Shizuka for the same reason, and while his baby sister was vastly more important than his guitar—while he’d set the guitar on fire without a second thought if it meant getting to see Shizuka again—it was still important to him that he keep them both separate from his social life.  It was important to keep them away from Hirutani and his ilk, even if only by word of mouth, even if there was no way Jounouchi would have ever let Hirutani get within five hundred feet of either his guitar or  _especially_ his little sister.

Hirutani was his friend, sure.  But friendship didn’t equal trust or integrity, and so it was for the best that Jounouchi kept his distance.

**\- - -**

Jounouchi left Hirutani’s gang for good the following year, when he opted to go to Domino High instead of Rintama, and he learned what friendship  _actually_ meant that same year, when a shrimpy kid whose life he made Hell defended him from someone much worse. But even after years of that friendship—after a theme park riddled with death traps, after a weekend spent on an island playing in a card game tournament, after a city-wide card game tournament that put the world at risk in more ways than one, and a trip to Egypt that changed all of their lives, but none so much as Yuugi’s—Jounouchi  _still_ kept his guitar to himself.

The rest of his secrets were out by this point. Yuugi knew about Shizuka—he’d met her, as he had every right to, given that it was because of him that Jounouchi won the money to pay for her operation.  He knew about Jounouchi’s parents, though Jounouchi did his best to keep the worst of that from him.  He knew about Hirutani, given the multiple times Hirutani tried to force Jounouchi to be his lapdog through threats of violence and murder.  Yuugi knew about it all, knew about every aspect of Jounouchi’s life, except for this one.

Once, after Duelist Kingdom but before Battle City, they’d come across an arcade that had a new guitar simulation game set up, right next to the DDR station.  Jounouchi had scoffed at it, had found the whole thing stupid because the guitars weren’t even real, they were just buttons instead of actual strings, it wasn’t like playing a guitar at all.  Honda had made a crack of, “It’s not like you’d be any better if it was a  _real_ guitar,” and Jounouchi stuck out his tongue and pretended to be huffy and mad, but still he said nothing, even though he could have, even though part of him wanted to just to prove Honda wrong.

The truth was, though, he wasn’t sure he could. His absolute suckage at Guitar Hero aside (and he was  _terrible_ , as he found out when Yuugi had convinced him to give it a shot), even after years of practice, he still wasn’t any better than “decent.” By this point, Jounouchi no longer held any delusions of super stardom; he knew that being a rock star was beyond him, that even if he found a band to audition for, there was no way he’d make it in. He was just okay on his best days, and maybe he’d be better than okay someday, but if he let himself admit it, it was another reason why he kept his guitar secret from his friends.  They were trustworthy, he knew, and if he told them about his  _actual_ playing, they wouldn’t tease him as they had when they’d come across Guitar Hero at the Domino Arcade. But he was just okay, and barely that, and after years of practice, he wished he had more to show for it. He wished he had even a third of the talent he’d dreamed about back when he’d first pulled the guitar out of the hall closet.

When they graduated high school, Jounouchi and Yuugi got an apartment together closer to Yuugi’s university.  Jounouchi wasn’t attending; he worked a few part-time jobs to help pay for the place while Yuugi pursued a major in game development and design. His mother hadn’t been a fan of his choice of major—she had urged him to pursue archaeology, like his grandfather, or perhaps pursue a business or medical degree—but Yuugi was adamant about what he wanted to do, and in the end his mother couldn’t sway him.

But even as a first year student, university took up a lot of Yuugi’s time.  Jounouchi had the apartment to himself a lot, even accounting for his jobs, and that gave him time to play.  He’d slipped the guitar in one day when Yuugi was out, after they’d already moved the rest of their possessions in, and when Yuugi was home Jounouchi kept it tucked out of sight, beneath his bed.

Years of experience and age didn’t give Jounouchi any edge when it came to not losing himself to whatever activity he was in engaged in, though, and just as he hadn’t noticed when his father had returned home early as a kid, he didn’t hear Yuugi slip into their shared apartment, either—nor had he thought about the fact that he’d left his bedroom door cracked open, supposedly for that purpose.  It wasn’t until he looked up to grab his soda that he noticed Yuugi was standing in his bedroom doorway, staring at him with wide eyes, and Jounouchi felt his face flush as he became all-too aware of the guitar cradled in his arms.

“Ah, Yuugi, I, uh—w-what are you doing home?” Jounouchi tried to make his voice light, but all that happened instead was that it cracked, adding another rush of heat to his already burning cheeks.  Yuugi smiled a little.

“My class let out a bit early, so I decided to come home and get some lunch, but I heard . . .” Yuugi nodded at the guitar in Jounouchi’s hands. “You play?’

“Uh, yeah, not really, I just . . .” Jounouchi shrugged, swallowed, tried to do  _anything_ to alleviate the embarrassment and tension that was not unlike how he’d felt at Duelist Kingdom, floundering and fumbling his way through duels like the amateur he had been. “You know, like to fool around. It’s nothing special.”

“Nothing special? It sounded great!”

“I—what?” Jounouchi stared, aghast, as Yuugi invited himself into Jounouchi’s room, and walked over to flop onto Jounouchi’s bed. Well, “flop;” Yuugi still wasn’t heavy enough to make the mattress really droop under his weight.

“I’m not really an expert on guitar or anything, but I thought you sounded good,” Yuugi said.  “How long have you been playing? Do you know many songs?”

“Not . . . really, I kinda just play whatever.” Jounouchi scrutinized him.  “You’re not messing with me?”

“Of course not. Why would I?” Yuugi asked, and he sounded sincere—but then, he was Yuugi.  He  _always_ sounded sincere, and Jounouchi knew that if there was one person from whom compliments never sounded suspicious, Yuugi was that person.  “Where did you get the guitar from? Have you had it long?”

“Some years, yeah. It was my dad’s.” Absentmindedly, Jounouchi plucked at a few of the strings. He hadn’t spoken to his dad since he moved out, and he didn’t miss him, but he still couldn’t help but feel pangs of guilt when he wondered about the rent, or the utilities, or the food. “He taught me some, but mostly I’ve just fooled around with it since I found it.”

“You’re pretty good for just fooling around,” Yuugi said, and when he smiled, it was genuine enough that Jounouchi couldn’t stop the grin that spread across his cheeks. “Hey, can you play something else? Or if you don’t want to, I understand, but—”

“Nah, why not?” Jounouchi said, and Yuugi beamed. “Got any requests?”

Jounouchi’s guitar was  _his_ thing, his secret, and he wasn’t that great and would never be a star of any kind—but this was fine, he thought, as Yuugi picked the first song that came to mind, and Jounouchi tried to play it, the song carefree and a bit haphazard, but honest all the same. It was fine if Yuugi knew, fine if it was  _their_ thing, when they were the only ones home, when they had late nights playing casual games of Duel Monsters, or watching B-movies, or trying (and somewhat succeeding!) to make  _okonomiyaki._ It was still secret this way, still special, if it was just the two of them.

 


End file.
